


Wand Meets Stone (Resurrected)

by Vaysh



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Canon Character Deaths in the Past, Dark Magic, Fiendfyre, Gen, Major Character Undeath, Resurrection Stone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 11:29:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8444113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaysh/pseuds/Vaysh
Summary: Do not meddle in the affairs of Death.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RZZMG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RZZMG/gifts).



> The long version of my 200 word drabble, [Stone Meets Wand](http://hp-halloween.livejournal.com/170610.html), written for HP Halloween 2016, for RZZMG's prompt: _Resurrection Stone, zombie apocalypse_
> 
> Thank you for the quick beta, Chantefable.

The Forbidden Forest was not a great hiding place. The Resurrection Stone was small, a mere pebble smaller than a Snitch, but it was powerful. Magic is drawn to power, and witches and wizards were bound to eventually stumble across the stone.

The first was Hermione. A stray brotherhood of international Death Eaters had discovered her parents when the war in England had been over for months. Her father survived, her mother didn't. Consumed by guilt and grief, Hermione at once knew the stone for what it was and took her chance.

Theo was the second. He was filching purses because he had gone hungry for days. Fate guided his hand when he came across Hermione's purse. Perceptive, with first knowledge of Dark magic, Theo felt the stone's magic prickle at his fingertips and he kept it. His bad fortune had begun with the loss of his father. Theo didn't think twice about using the stone. He knew what the Dark Lord had done. Resurrection was nothing compared to splitting your soul for eternal life.

Afterwards he gave the stone to Draco, as a gift. Something to cheer Draco up, to make him feel better. Draco was in St Mungo's. The Malfoy heir was not quite right in the head, was whispered in the old circles. He had refused to leave with his parents for France; he had not left the Manor for months. When he appeared in Diagon Alley, sunken eyes, a scraggly beard and robes that didn't deserve the name, a kind soul had committed him to St Mungo's. It took mere days until Draco used the Resurrection Stone. Guilt can make you lose your mind completely.

Bill was the Spellbreaker who found Draco and Vincent amidst the Fiendfyre set loose by the resurrected Vince in the Spell Damage ward. St Mungo's was burning to the ground, it was unsalvageable. All they could do was save the patients and keep the Fiendfyre contained so it did not spread to Diagon, or worse, Muggle London. The Fiendfyre had a pale quality to it, nothing Bill had ever seen. Instead of dragons and chimaera he saw skeletal shapes in it, a huge black bird and a giant with a scythe.

Bill kept the Resurrection Stone well-hidden. He never looked at it, never touched it. He couldn't say he did not think of it, but not often. More after George's suicide attempt that had left him earless and barely able to speak. Bill took out the Resurrection Stone then, thinking and wondering. But only when Molly locked herself in Arthur's shed, with the Ford Anglia II running and no way for the exhaust to escape (and where had Molly Weasley learned about poisonous fumes?) did Bill carry the Stone in his pocket. It took him three days, then he came to a decision. With Fred back, Molly would enter the Burrow again. With Fred back, George would laugh like before the war. And so he brought Fred back.

The _Prophet_ called them the Resurrected. The Wizarding World simply called them the Four. Three times they had secretly met in the Forbidden Forest, trying to find the place where the Stone had been discovered, to somehow get back from where they had been called. A resurrected life was less than half a life. Living as a shade hurt, all that air and burning light. Even Mrs Granger, who clung to her family the most, wanted to go back.

They wouldn't let them. Hermione destroyed the Veil in the Ministry for Magic. Draco burned the treasured note-book Snape had left behind. Vincent might have discovered a spell in it that allowed him to kill himself and the others for good. Theo ruined the Restricted Section in the Hogwarts Library that held all the Dark knowledge about how to return the half-dead to death. And Bill, who saw how happy George was with even just Fred's shade returned and Molly contentedly making vol-au-vents in the kitchen, flooded the caverns below Gringotts to destroy each and every Dark artefact stored in private vaults.

Lily Luna was only three years old. She liked the hard-edged black pebble she'd found in Grandma Weasley's garden. It glittered in the sunlight and when she touched it with her fingertips, it hummed.

On the bench under the gnarly old apple tree, Uncle Fred sat. He was so pale Lily thought she could see the trunk of the tree not behind but _through_ him. His eyes were bright and full of longing. 

"Who would you bring back from the dead, little one?" he asked.

Lily knew what death was. Swish, her crup, had died last year. He was lying under the earth over at the pumpkin patch. Daddy's uncle had died, too, a long time ago, his Uncle Sirius. Lily knew him from a thousand of Dad's stories. She'd found his picture in the attic of their home at Grimmauld Place, a man with long black hair and an old-fashioned purple coat. Lily envied James his second name like not much else.

"Sirius", she said, and not Swish, because Dad should get his Uncle Sirius back.

And Fred brought Sirius Black back from beyond the Veil.

They moved towards Hogwarts, the Four and the one, under cover of the night, shades amidst a world of shadows. They knew of one more means to death, and it lay hidden in Dumbledore's grave. It rose pale before them. 

Vincent raised his ghostly wand and shattered the _Protego_ with a single brutal word. Nott Sr pushed away the cracked lid; Fred climbed in to search the grave. Mrs Granger kept the Resurrection Stone safe, close to her heart. Sirius had an eerie light in his eyes, and his clothes smelled of Azkaban and the sea. Fred gave the Wand to him, and Mrs Granger held out the Stone.

When the Elder Wand touched its brother, the Resurrection Stone, surrounded by five shades with neither will nor claim to life, the world changed.

Hogwarts crumbled soundlessly into a heap of stones, overgrown with moss that looked ages old. The moon disappeared from the sky; the stars blinked out one by one. The air grew thinner, and a sulphuric stench rose from the Hogwarts grounds. Fog curled over the lake. The Five breathed more easily as the world around them was wrapped in deeper shadows.

Behind them, from the Sarcophagus, came the rustling of old robes. When they turned, they saw Dumbledore climbing awkwardly from his grave, a twinkle in his glassless eyes. Everywhere around the earth shook. The ageless dead from millennia rose from the soil. Relieved, the Five looked at each other and smiled. They were back in the realm of Death. The order of things had been restored.


End file.
